Perfect Security by 2025?

Our annual technology issue highlights evolving approaches that drive supply chain performance. New technology will also bring advances to security. Here's a look at what I envision for security in 2025:

Wi-Fi umbrellas cover entire areas, making any movement or off-baseline measurement (such as heat or sound) cause for alarm once the facility is locked down.

Cheap micro-cameras (think backup cameras on your car) attached to the outside of trailers stream shots triggered by movement when the trailer is in a yard. Alerts are sent to the driver when in a rest stop, or security monitoring services when not.

Drones currently used to monitor rail track conditions and follow intruders are applied to yards and facilities for real-time security monitoring based on infrared or motion/sound detection. If an intruder is detected, drones trail the miscreant and broadcast GPS coordinates, enabling police to identify and apprehend the trespasser quickly. As they follow intruders, the drones could squirt hard-to-remove markers on them, making deterrence and apprehension more likely.

Secure "water guns" placed in high-risk areas spray intruders with indelible markers, and audio alert them that they have been so marked.

Hundreds of tiny, inexpensive online cameras that are easily hidden in a warehouse or cross-dock facility will snap and dump pictures of security anomalies for post-incident forensics.

Cameras pointed outside secure facilities will report suspicious behavior based on algorithms of previous criminal activity at like facilities to predict intrusions. Like facilities will share security data in a cloud database cataloging past criminal behavior and suspects.

Face recognition software cross-linked with personnel, and the shared cloud database of security files, will deter inside jobs as cameras recognize and auto alert the thief by name when possible. If the names are not available, police are provided a detailed description, including height, weight, clothing, and other identifiers.

Sensors placed in high-risk areas will scan for intruder cellphone identifiers, logging them for use in post-incident forensics. When appropriate, the scanners will call the identified phone number and inform the intruder that he or she is busted.